HELP! Reconstruct Video From Render Files??

I accidentally deleted a video file I was working with because apparently I forgot to check Copy to Library. I only dragged it to the trash and deleted it, so I am hopeful that Data Rescue 5 will be able to recover it, but in the meantime while I am trying not to panic, does anyone know of a way to make a new file from the Render Files??

Render files cannot reproduce the original video as they only optimize the effects stream of a clip to provide smooth playback. Looks like your options might include Data Rescue, Disc Drill or other recovery apps. This assumes it was copied from the card to somewhere on your computer before you deleted it. If you deleted the clip only from the timeline and you imported as "leave in place", then the actual clip didn't get deleted, only the non-destructive version of the original file did (if I understand your post correctly). If you go to the FCPX library in the finder, right click on it and choose "show package contents" you should be able to locate the event the clip was in. In that event will be a folder "Original Media", and in there would be the original file (if "copy to library" was used, or a link to where the file resides (if "leave in place" was used).

Thanks for your reply, although it is bad news. I did not just delete the clip from the project, I deleted it from the SD card and then emptied the trash. I always select Copy rather than leave-in-place, but somehow this setting got changed & I did not realize it.

I have tried Data Rescue & Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery. Both see the file, but are unable to recover it. I am currently scanning the card with Stellar Phoenix Data Recovery but it probably uses the same techniques of the Photo version so I am not hopeful. I will try a few other products & then consult with a data recovery specialist if nothing else.

Any recovery software suggestions, Mac OR Windows, gratefully accepted. I wonder if the problem is compounded by the fact that the card is formatted ExFAT & the file was trashed on a Mac. No data has been written TO the card, so I have hope it can be recovered.

If the card was not formatted and no further writes took place, there is potential the data might be recovered. If recovery apps don't work you can send it to a commercial data recovery company. I used this company once: www.securedatarescue.com

Best Buy also contracts with a data recovery service but it's even more expensive.

I can tell you from experience, paying a ton of money to those recovery companies usually doesn't result in much more data retrieval that what you're getting with those apps. Just my two cents from my extensive experience with that. It depends on what that footage is worth to you...

FCPX.guru wrote: I can tell you from experience, paying a ton of money to those recovery companies usually doesn't result in much more data retrieval that what you're getting with those apps.....

Another vital point is you should have a written agreement with the company for amount paid vs results achieved, and the meaning of "results" should be defined.

E.g, the few times I've done this, I told them this is video, not a .txt or .doc file. A document might be valuable even if it has garbage at the end, or a few odd characters. By contrast a partially recovered video file may not play. It does me no good if they recover non-playable fragments.

For some recovery companies you pay nothing if they recover nothing. With others there's a low cost for the attempt but if "successful" (whatever that is) then you pay more.

All that should be defined in writing before going forward with the transaction. In my limited experience they were not successful, but that was a reformat case not a delete case.

Re reconstruct from render files, this would be difficult. While internally those are encoded ProRes 422, they are not arranged as regular files but split in frame-range batches across many files. You also don't know if the entire media file is rendered.

If the OP had Time Machine running, it might be recoverable from that.

Thank you to everyone who replied! I'm writing this follow-up for posterity, in case anyone else has a similar problem.

I tried Data Rescue 5, Stellar Data Recovery Premium & Videorepair, all to no avail. I was able to recover the whole file, but not able to fix whatever needed to be fixed to make it play properly. Audio was fine but video was corrupt.

I ended up shipping the SD card to to Fields Data Recovery. Long story short, they ended up quoting me the upper end of their sliding scale, which was supposed to be based on recovery/repair difficulty ($1200!). I knew that this should be a pretty simple recovery, so I was not pleased. But I asked them if they would guarantee that the file would play until the end, uncorrupted. At that point they stopped replying to me, after having emailed me daily trying to solicit my business when I started inquiring. It took three weeks to get my SD card back, with no communication from them regarding my shipment order received, tracking info, etc.

Meanwhile I had made a disk image using Apple Disk Utility, and started talking with Brian at $300 Data Recovery in LA. He was incredibly responsive & helpful, and after seeing the recovered directory list from Fields he was willing to guarantee a complete & successful recovery, which they were in fact able to achieve. My total cost was around $320 including shipping a recovery drive. I can't possibly say enough good things about them.

TL;DR: Fields Data Recovery sucks. $300 Data Recovery are AWESOME!

300dollardatarecovery.com

dgwvideo wrote: Render files cannot reproduce the original video as they only optimize the effects stream of a clip to provide smooth playback.

ok… could you develop this please ? it's interesting. How it works...

so FcpX renders are completely different from what they where in Fcp7 ?

Xavier Novembre wrote: ok… could you develop this please ? it's interesting. How it works...

so FcpX renders are completely different from what they where in Fcp7 ?

It may be the process of how FCPX handles render files as opposed to how FCP7 handles them. Larry Jordan has a short discussion on this here: larryjordan.com/articles/fcp-x-delete-render-files/
This original post had to do with whether a deleted video file could be re-created from only a render file that still existed. I don't believe that it could since the render file is a temporary file that is processing effects of a clip on the timeline to provide easier playback. and I don't think contains all of the original clip media. I'm not sure technically what these files contain or how they reference the original video clip. Maybe someone else can provide more detailed information.

dgwvideo wrote:

Xavier Novembre wrote: ok… could you develop this please ? it's interesting. How it works...

so FcpX renders are completely different from what they where in Fcp7 ?

It may be the process of how FCPX handles render files as opposed to how FCP7 handles them. Larry Jordan has a short discussion on this here: larryjordan.com/articles/fcp-x-delete-render-files/
This original post had to do with whether a deleted video file could be re-created from only a render file that still existed. I don't believe that it could since the render file is a temporary file that is processing effects of a clip on the timeline to provide easier playback. and I don't think contains all of the original clip media. I'm not sure technically what these files contain or how they reference the original video clip. Maybe someone else can provide more detailed information.

okay, Larry is telling what is happening when you manipulate rendered parts from FcpX.
nothing about what happens "under the hood".

With Fcp7 you could take those render files from their folder of creation and residence, copy them somewhere and keep them for ever ! you could place in the Timeline like any QuickTime file ! and that would have saved the life of the original poster

but nobody seems to have a clue as to what those mysterious FcpX render files are...

you say : the render file is a temporary file that is processing effects of a clip on the timeline to provide easier playback. amen to that... but I dont understand what you mean. You mean it is not a "solid" rendered video file ? so how does it work ?

Render files for a given range contain all material needed to export that range. This is why a fully-rendered ProRes 422 timeline using ProRes 422 material exported to ProRes 422 happens at extremely high speed. In that case FCPX is simply assembling the rendered frame segments from cache, appending them and writing to an output file. In one test, I had many compute-intensive effects on a 60 sec 4k ProRes 422 timeline, and after rendering, FCPX exported to 4k PR422 in about 8 seconds on an iMac Pro. It was essentially just copying one ProRes file to another location.

The cache is not just rendered effects -- it is a flattened, rendered, encoded ProRes 422 file encompassing all timeline layers for a given range, but partitioned into frame segments. Those rendered segments are somehow indexed by FCPX for rapid assembly but are not playable using any known tool.

However the original question was recovering source files from the render cache. This is not possible since the cache is a rendered "mix down" of all layers with all effects applied. It is essentially like a ProRes output file but segmented. Even if you had an internal tool which assembled the rendered segments, it would not be the individual source files - it would be a flattened, rendered, encoded version. For a data recovery emergency this might be good enough -- IF there was a tool or method for assembling those segments.

But in many cases that hypothetical recovered data could be very different from the missing source files. What if a mask or lower thirds or alpha blend was done on some layer? All you'd have is the flattened output. You'd have no way to backtrack to the individual source file.

joema wrote: However the original question was recovering source files from the render cache. This is not possible since the cache is a rendered "mix down" of all layers with all effects applied. It is essentially like a ProRes output file but segmented. Even if you had an internal tool which assembled the rendered segments, it would not be the individual source files - it would be a flattened, rendered, encoded version. For a data recovery emergency this might be good enough -- IF there was a tool or method for assembling those segments.

In my case that would have been more than acceptable, because I was only making a preview video for the client to review for future edits. All that I had done was chop the beginning and end slightly and added direct sound.

joema wrote: Render files for a given range contain all material needed to export that range. This is why a fully-rendered ProRes 422 timeline using ProRes 422 material exported to ProRes 422 happens at extremely high speed. In that case FCPX is simply assembling the rendered frame segments from cache, appending them and writing to an output file.
...
The cache is not just rendered effects -- it is a flattened, rendered, encoded ProRes 422 file encompassing all timeline layers for a given range, but partitioned into frame segments. Those rendered segments are somehow indexed by FCPX for rapid assembly but are not playable using any known tool.

that's what I thought. Even If I didn't want to put up a fight with dgwvideo

So now the question is (at least for the sake … ) : how could we find the "tool" to access them as video files ?